Gift Lubele

About Gift

Gift Lubele

AI & Data Leader · Founder · AI Music Pioneer · International Speaker

Cape Town, South Africa

Gift Lubele in Cape Town. Photograph.
Photograph · Cape Town

AI and data leader. Founder of Auraa.Africa, Director at Rinku Connect, AI Lead at YIEDI, co-founder of Kudoti, and the artist behind South Africa's first AI-generated Amapiano album.

Gift Lubele is a South African AI and data analytics leader from Tembisa, working at the intersection of technology, entrepreneurship, and African creative culture. He is the founder of Auraa.Africa, the AI music platform behind South Africa's first AI-generated Amapiano album, and Director at Rinku Connect, an AI-powered business intelligence product for Africa.

He currently serves as AI Lead at YIEDI (Youth Innovation Entrepreneurship Design Institute), where he helps shape enterprise- and supplier-development programs through AI and data. He is also a co-founder of Kudoti, a waste-tech company. He is a TEDx speaker, a contributor to Leadership magazine, and an active member of the World Economic Forum's Global Shapers Johannesburg Hub.

“Africa shouldn’t import its AI future. We should build it.”

Founder / CEO

Auraa.Africa is first-class work, not a footnote.

Generate authentic African music (Afrobeats, Amapiano, Highlife, and more). Built because leading models are ~94% Western-trained.

First catalogue

South Africa's first AI Amapiano Album

30 Sep 2025, 17 tracks, GNLUB. South Africa’s first AI-generated amapiano album.

Open AI Music
Auraa prize

Huawei Developer Competition Grand Innovation Prize

Auraa.Africa's own competition announcement on LinkedIn (cash plus 100 million cloud credits). Not a press award. Not a booked Huawei keynote. May 2026.

LinkedIn announcement
AI MusicAI VideosAI Solutions

Current Role

AI Lead & Business Growth Specialist at YIEDI.

YIEDI

As AI Lead & Business Growth Specialist at the Youth Innovation Entrepreneurship Design Institute (YIEDI), I shape AI strategy and delivery across enterprise- and supplier-development programs, pairing data, automation, and generative AI with practical growth playbooks for South African SMEs.

The work spans AI readiness diagnostics, tooling rollouts, and measurable commercial outcomes for founders navigating procurement, enterprise supply chains, and the broader B-BBEE ecosystem.

Visit YIEDI

Focus areas

  • · AI strategy for SME & supplier development
  • · Generative AI tooling & enablement
  • · Data-driven growth playbooks
  • · Enterprise & procurement readiness

Education

Where the work was sharpened.

  1. 2024-2025

    MBA, Artificial Intelligence & Data Analytics

    Hult International Business School (Boston)

    President, Hult Sustainability Club

  2. [YEARS]

    Undergraduate studies (Entrepreneurship & Leadership)

    African Leadership University

What I’m building today

What ships now.

Founder / CEO

Auraa.Africa

AI music creation for African creators (Afrobeats, Amapiano, Highlife, and more). First catalogue: South Africa's first AI-generated amapiano album, 30 Sep 2025, GNLUB.

On this site: AI Music

Director

Rinku Connect

AI-powered business intelligence for Africa: automated diagnostics and intelligent matching that connect entrepreneurs with corporate opportunities and funding.

Visit site

AI Lead

YIEDI

AI strategy and delivery for the Youth Innovation Entrepreneurship Design Institute's enterprise- and supplier-development programs.

Visit site

Co-founder

Kudoti

Waste-tech platform connecting informal and formal waste collectors with recyclers.

Visit site

Recognition

Recognition, labelled by venture.

  • Huawei Developer Competition Grand Innovation Prize, May 2026 (Auraa.Africa LinkedIn announcement, not a press award, not a booked Huawei keynote)

  • 1st Prize, BRICS Young Innovator competition, US$25,000 (Kudoti)

  • Nestlé Global Award, US$40,000 (Kudoti)

  • Fast Company SA, 25 Most Innovative Companies, March 2020 (Kudoti)

  • Fast Company SA, Top 20 Entrepreneurs Under 30 (2019)

  • Most Influential Young People in South Africa (2018)

  • World Trade Organization certificate, Asia Model Conference (Bangkok)

  • TEDx speaker

  • Speaker, ITWeb AI Summit 2026

Affiliations

  • · WEF Global Shapers, Johannesburg Hub
  • · Columnist, Leadership magazine (South Africa)

What I believe

Three things I keep coming back to.

Africa shouldn't import its AI future. We should build it.

The next decade of AI will reflect whoever shows up to build it. African builders need to be in the room, on the model, in the data.

AI is most powerful when it democratises access.

To studios, to capital, to expertise. The tools that matter are the ones that put leverage in more hands, not fewer.

Mindful failure is the cost of meaningful progress.

You don’t build something new without learning publicly. The work is to fail in ways that compound rather than crush.

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